The Hall of MirrorsMixed up musings on real life and fantasy from within the Hall of Mirrors.

Stand in front of a mirror and look into it. What do you see? Or more importantly, who do you see? We all wear a facade to show to the public on a day to day basis. But when you look in the mirror you see not only your own face but all the faces of all the masques you wear...

So here it is, December 1st. Novemeber is over, and with it, NaNoWriMo is done.

I made it.

I made it to just over 50,000 words on Friday November 29, which was good, since I had a houseful of people and no time to write on the 30th! *smiles* I verified, and have yet to put up my little "I made it!" icon. I'll do that sometime this week, probably.

What did I learn?

I can write something I really like and keep at it. I can bull through the bad times and make it count. I can write by skipping around. Most importantly though, I am still a writer somewhere inside my head, and I desperately *want* to still be a writer. In many ways, NaNo made all the recent stress at my job just that much more stressful -- I had something to dream about doing instead. Didn't help. *wry smiles*

I followed up NaNo by having a houseful of people on Saturday, which was cool. We had two extra children in the house! (That's not counting all the guys gaming). I got to play both Guillotine and then DragonMaster with Amasa and Dina, which was cool. Then after the kids went to bed, Shawn and Dina introduced us to a great game called Formula De, from Europe, which is a racecar game. Absolutely LOVED IT.

Today I did something I haven't done in ages. Played Magic.

Yes, Magic the addiction. But not the old way. Shawn brought these new decks that WoTC makes. They are all prebalanced full decks that you buy, and no need for buying packs or anything or balancing or whatever. And no getting blown away by someone who owns a hundred specialty rares and has spent thousands of dollars. It puts the game on an even playing field.

So we played a couple of rounds of that, choosing decks from his collection, and it was a lot of fun. It was Magic in the way that I remember Magic being at the beginning, and I had a great time. It made me actually want to get out my cards and make a few balanced decks to just keep around.

Everything is all cleaned up again, and life is calm. Tomorrow its back to work, and hoping Ryan stays healthy long enough to stay in daycare all day (I'm praying). I'm trying to work out some new schedules for myself, for getting things done in a less haphazard fashion. But I'm also going to work on finding ways to not be so stressed. Because its not getting me anywhere productive. Friday was great. I had to work on Friday, but its my absolute fave day of the year to work because its quiet. I got in early, and was one of the last people out the door (which was still an early day since the market was closed early), and I got SO much done because I had no meetings. I wish more days were like Friday!